Rusted Metal
by LethargicLuck
Summary: Twelve years after the Elric brothers and their friends defeated Father, things in Amestris have changed, and not for the better. Edward Elric is dead, and Alphonse Elric has not been seen in years. But when a cryptic letter arrives at the Xing Imperial palace, perhaps it is time for the Armoured Alchemist to come into the world once again.
1. Chapter 1: Finding Alphonse

Chapter One: Finding Alphonse

_No one knows what happened to Alphonse Elric the night they stormed Central City and the Alchemists fell. Some say he was killed with the rest of them, and others say he simply fled, tired of fighting. Either way, all that's known for sure is that the Alchemists haven't seen him, and he hasn't spoken out or acted in years. Its a shame, the world could really use the Armoured Alchemist right now. _

Lan Fan walked through the ruins of the Pinako Automail workshop. The grass and weeds had long grown into the cracks of the floorboards, and it would be easier to detail what was left recognizable of the house than what wasn't. There were other ruins in the area, leftover from a bombing that occurred on the outskirts of town back during the Ishvalan Civil War. But these ruins were newer, more recent, and the damage not as massive as a bombing. Most of the roof had been completely destroyed, but most of the walls still stood, and most of the cracking and crumbling was from time's toll, not from a bomb blast. There was Alchemy used here, and Alkahestry as well, Lan Fan could feel it in the pulse of the earth, see it in the cracked stone spikes and drills that littered the earth and the Alkahestric Kunai that lay discarded and rusted. But despite the carnage, the broken floorboards and the slight reddish tint in some panels of hardwood and patches of dirt that indicated spilled bloods, there was no evidence of bodies.

The fight had not been recent, Lan Fan placed it at around four years ago. The bullet casings and broken armour left behind were rusted, and there were no curious bystanders, indicating that this site was old news. Lan Fan looked all around the building, but she knew it was in vain. She would find no clues here, and was no further towards accomplishing the goal in the note that had made her leave the Emperor's side. She would have rather stayed by his side, but Ling had insisted that she was the only one he trusted to handle it, and that he had other guards. Either way, Lan Fan was committed to returning to her liege's side as fast as possible. But the instructions inside the note "Find Alphonse, and tell him Edward's Gate has finally been opened in Briggs" were cryptic, and only the first two words made any sense to her. She leaned against one of the few intact walls remaining, and took off her mask. She clenched her fist as she remembered her initial protests to what she thought was a wild goose chase, and the conversation that had finally persuaded her to go.

"With all due respect, Emperor, Alphonse has not been heard or seen of in the past five years, ever since the coup." Lan Fan protested to Emperor Ling. "It could just be a wild goose chase, or, more likely, a trap to lure you into a vulnerable position."

Emperor Ling's eyebrows rose "How would this lure me into a vulnerable position? I would go find Alphonse myself, but this Emperor business keeps me from doing anything fun." He frowned, then lightened up. "At least I can eat as much food as I want now, without asking others to pay for me! The Elric brothers paid for every single one of my meals when I was in Amestris, and were part of the main reason I obtained all this."

He encompassed the Imperial throne room in one gesture. "If I recall, they helped you defeat those Homunculi, and were a key factor in stopping that madman." Lan Fan nodded, recalling the Elric brother's assistance in making Ling emperor those twenty years ago.

Ling continued "That's why I'm entrusting the task of finding Alphonse to you. My most capable and trustworthy guard."

Lan Fan blushed slightly, as she always did when the Emperor paid her such compliments, but it was hidden behind her mask and her voice was steady as she bowed and said "If it is your wish, I will find Alphonse and deliver him to Briggs, Emperor. "

Emperor Ling smiled "Im sure it will be an easy task for someone as skilled as yourself." In that smile, Lan Fan almost found herself believing that finding a man that hadn't been seen for fifteen years would be, as Ling said, easy.

Now, two months since she had departed from Xing, she was no closer to locating the Armoured Alchemist than she had been when she left. She had seen various wanted posters for him, with the current Fuhrer offering huge sums of money for his capture, but those posters were torn and faded, and when she asked around, it seems it has been years since anyone had tried to obtain that bounty. She moved from city to city, town to town, from Central City to Reole, and finally here to Resembool, but all she found were remnants of battles that Alphonse might have participated in. She was scouring the country of Amestris for anyone who might know where Alphonse might be, but all seemed to have disappeared. The Curtis , the Hughes, and now the Rockbells, all had vanished, just as Alphonse himself had. Neighbours to the Curtis and Hughes family suggested they moved to Briggs, and it appeared the Rockbells had no neighbours.

Lan Fan sighed and looked at the setting sun. It appeared that she might have to go all the way to Briggs to find even a clue of where Alphonse was. She slipped her mask back on and started looking for a local Inn to spend the night before resuming her search, putting Briggs in her mind as a last resort. The place was a fortress, even more so now that it housed almost all the remaining Alchemists not indoctrinated by the new Amestris government, and Lan Fan might be mistaken as a Xingese assassin and killed before she could explain herself. There was still Rush Valley, Youswell and countless other towns the Elric brothers had visited on their adventure twelve years ago. An adventure that Lan Fan and Ling had been part of, along with her grandfather, and May Chang, and what an adventure that had been.

Lan Fan was so busy reminiscing about that past adventure, and wondering what had happened to May Chang, that she almost didn't notice that she was stepping into a transmutation circle until the reflection of the setting sun caught an object buried in the ground. An Alkahestry marker.

Lan Fan jumped back just in time, as smoking scythes of energy cut across where she was just standing. She grabs a grenade with her right hand and flicks a kunai out of her automail arm, holding it in an expert knife fighter's grip, while scanning the area for the assailant.

More glints in the dying light marked two more knives speeding towards her, and as she moved to dodge them, a sharp pain pierced her right thigh. Glancing down, she saw an arrow made entirely of stone buried into the ground, having passed clean through her leg, burrowing through the bone in the process. Trying to move her leg brought stabs of excruciating pain, but Lan Fan gritted her teeth and continued scanning the area for her assailants, and judging by the direction of the thrown knives... there!

Standing atop a tree, face hidden behind a mask, was a man unmistakably from Xing, readying more knives to throw at Lan Fan. Which meant... she turned her head to where the arrow flew from, and there, standing on the rooftop of a building about three-hundred meters away, a figure notched another arrow into a bow, the telltale sparks of alchemy still visible on the arrow's head.

An archer alchemist and a knife throwing Xingese assassin. What a combination, Lan Fan mused, as she dodged the next few knives and arrows thrown.

"So you're Emperor Yao's guard dog." The Xingese assassin sneered as he threw another five knives, forcing Lan Fan to throw herself to the side to avoid being caught within a Purification Circle formed by the dodged knives, and laughing as she turned her dodge into quick, tight roll to avoid the arrows shot by his companion. "I must say, I imagined it would be much harder to put you down. This is just a game of cat and mouse."

The pair seemed content to attack her from a distance, and with her leg injury from that first, unexpected arrow they figured she wouldn't be able to close the distance quickly enough, especially when they had Alchemy and Alkahestry on their side. But she was already a deadly warrior those twelve years ago, and that was when she had been fifteen. There were few in Xing that could match her speed, and she had several surprises up her sleeve. She just had to wait for the perfect time to use them.

"Why are you trying to kill me?" Lan Fan asked as she dodged yet more of the man's knives and the alchemists' arrows, making sure to avoid any places where the knives or arrows formed any thing that resembled a circle. "The Emperor stopped the inter-clan wars when he rose to power, and why are you working with an alchemist?"

"You think that all the enmity between clans would cease just because the Emperor said so?" The assassin asked incredulously. "You really are a stupid guard dog. Though I suppose, if the Emperor feeds you treats, you have no reason to complain, do you?" He laughed as he threw the next few knives. "The Yao Clan has done things to my family that we will never forget, royal decree or no, and while striking at the Emperor is a bit audacious, hitting at the guard dog seems like a good place to start"

Biting back her fury at the insults, Lan Fan continued to watch for an opening in either one of her assailants. "`So why not attack me, or any other member of my clan back in Xing? "`

"Because there, the Emperor`s law is absolute. But here, out in Amestris, his law is null and void. So when I heard that the job involved hunting you down, I immediately took it. Though, the other perks are nice as well. "

"What job would that be? " Lan Fan inquired, still studying her two assailants. The assassin was growing boastful, and that often led to a mistake in the near future, but the archer hadn't said a word, and an aura of cold efficiency radiated from the alchemic sparks that swirled at the tip of each arrow that was launched at her.

The assassin held up a finger and tsked "You've already been told more than enough. It`s time to end this cat and mouse game. " He stopped throwing knives for a moment to reach behind his back to grab something else, something he obviously thought would decisively end this fight.

With a blur of movement, Lan Fan attached the grenade she had been holding to a loop at the back of the kunai in her other hand, removed the pin and threw it at the assassin as he reached behind his back. The kunai flew straight and true, embedding itself into the man`s shoulder. Lan Fan saw the eyes of the man narrow in pain as he glanced at his shoulder, and then abruptly widen in fear as he saw the grenade attached to it.

He moved his other hand to try and pull the kunai out, but it was too late. The grenade exploded, sending shrapnel shredding throughout the would-be assassins` body killing him instantly, but Lan Fan was already moving towards the alchemist archer, when suddenly four more figures appeared in her peripheral vision.

"I told you we shouldn't have let that cocky arse from Xing handle it himself." One of the figures said as it unsheathed a large sword from a scabbard at his back.

"Well at least we convinced him that he should have the archer helping him out. " Another said as it jerked a thumb towards the alchemist archer, who was still firing arrows at Lan Fan, who was finding it harder and harder to dodge them with her wounded leg.

One of the other figures just grunted in agreement, then sent a mass of rock hurtling towards Lan Fan with a gesture of his hand and a punching motion. The last rays of the setting sun illuminated the transmutation arrays tattooed across his right forearm, along an array of symbols on both hands of another attacker. The other two seemed to be just regular assassins then. Three alchemists and two assassins on their side, a wounded leg on hers. This was not going to be an easy fight, but then again, service in the name of her lord wasn`t supposed to be easy.

With quick deft movements, she dodged the initial alchemy barrage and tossed in an assortment of grenades, both shrapnel and smoke, causing confusion amongst her opponents. A knife in the throat silenced one of the alchemists, but these were trained killers, and the other three recovered from the confusion, while the archer was too far away to be affected in the first place. Lan Fan gauged the distance, and knew that she couldn`t throw anything that far accurately, and the other three would prevent her from closing the gap.

Already the remaining Alchemist had grabbed fistfuls of dirt from the ground, and using the arrays on his palms, turned them into a pair of punch daggers and proceeded to lunge at Lan Fan, as his two other allies rushed at her, one with two swords and another sporting two pistols. With the bullets and arrows forcing Lan Fan into a retreat, she reached into her grenade pouch and found only one left, a flash grenade that produced an intense burst of light, temporarily blinding those closest to it. Shifting her grip on her dagger to turn aside the punch dagger`s lunge, she hurled the grenade full force at the gun-wielding assailant, and a bright flash erupted upon impact and causing assailant to claw at his eyes and scream, dropping both guns.

But Lan Fan herself was too close, and was also temporarily blinded by the grenade`s flash. Relying on her hearing, she threw four of her five remaining knives at the sound of the gunman screaming, and an abrupt end in the screaming told her that at least one had found the mark. But just as she was about to try and deal with the other two attackers before the light wore off, a piercing pain drilled through her right foot and she tripped to the ground. Another burst of pain hit her right arm and she found herself pinned to the ground, one arrow through her hand and another through her foot. Slowly, her sight returned, as did the sight of the other two assailants.

"Thanks for the assist Archer." The alchemist called to the silence figure on the rooftop before crouching down and putting his mouth uncomfortably close the Lan Fan`s ear. "That was a nice trick you pulled, and if Archer hadn't been there, you probably woulda gotten both of us. " He then drove his punch dagger into her shoulder, causing her to cry out in pain. "Too bad for you then isn't it. "

"What's the delay Feton? " the other attacker asked "Just kill her already, and we can resume our search for Alphonse, and finally finish that job. "

They were searching for Alphonse too! This was not good at all, Lan Fan thought. But here she was, pinned and defeated, and there wasn't a thing she could do. She had failed, but she wasn't going to go down without a fight. Her automail arm wasn't pinned down by an arrow, and the hidden blade that jutted out from the elbow was still sheathed. All she needed to do was to wait for Feton to get a little bit closer...

Feton sighed. "It looks like my friend wants me to finish you off quick. Its too bad... I wanted to play with you a little bit. " Now that he was close, Lan Fan could see the sadism in his eyes, the not too sane glint that came as he raised the punch dagger and poised it at her neck. "It's a shame that your quest to find your long lost friend will end in failure... "

"I wouldn't quite say that... " A voice said, and suddenly the other attacker was slammed into by several blocks of concrete and mortar, sending him flying into a nearby wall, which he hit with a sickening crack. Then, with an alchemic spark, a wall rose between the Archer and Lan Fan, protecting Lan Fan from any more arrows.

"What the... " Feton muttered as a new figure came into view, silhouetted by the last dying rays of the sun, and raised a hand in greeting.

"Alphonse Elric... " Lan Fan whispered

"Hello Lan Fan. I hear you've been looking for me? "


	2. Chapter 2: Reunions and Gliders

Chapter Two

"Alphonse Elric!" Feton exclaimed, stunned by his sudden appearance and his killing of the other assailant. Lan Fan used the diversion to jerk her automail fist up, connecting squarely with Feton's jaw. As his grip on her loosened, she pivoted her elbow blade into position and delivered two savage slashes across his midsection and a stab straight into his sternum. The force of the blow pushing Feton clean off of Lan Fan's body, but the momentum of her attack moved her other arm and leg, and she cried out in pain as the arrows cut into her flesh, even as they pinned her down.

Alphonse knelt down and grasped the arrows by the shaft. Lan Fan looked at him, and saw how much he had changed in twelve years. He had pronounced eye bags, and had a stubble growing, down his sideburns and on his chin. His muscles were more pronounced, but they were not too much larger. All in all, his physical appearance had proceeded as Lan Fan would have expected.

"Hello Lan Fan, we can have a proper reunion later, but this may hurt a bit." Alphonse said. He yanked the arrows out swiftly, the barbs on the arrowhead cutting in Lan Fan, causing rivulets of blood to pour out of the wounds and causing Lan Fan to grunt in pain. She looked at the blood flowing out, and grimaced.

"Alphonse, at the rate I'm bleeding, I'm probably going to die of blood loss soon. Those barbs..."

Alphonse crossed his hands, which Lan Fan noticed had alchemic patterns tattooed across the back of his hands, which flared briefly as the crossed. That triggered something in Lan Fan's mind. The Elric brothers hadn't needed Alchemic symbols before. They, along with every other alchemist Lan Fan had seen whom had done Human Transmutation, simply clapped, and they could perform alchemy. So why was Alphonse using alchemic symbols now?

Alphonse uncrossed his hands, revealing Alkahestry markers, which he had fashioned out of handfuls of dirt and stone that he scooped up from the ground. Placing them in the ground, he formed a Purification Circle and produced a bright blue liquid in the centre, hovering atop the circle like a blue philosophers stone.

"Alkahestry." Lan Fan breathed. She had known that Alphonse had taken to learning Alkahestry after their battle with Father, but she hadn't realized how proficient he had become at it.

Alphonse nodded, took the stone in cupped hands, and as soon as it left the Purification Circle, it turned into a liquid, which Alphonse slowly dribbled on each Lan Fan's gaping wounds, and almost instantly, the bleeding stopped, and the wounds began to knit themselves together.

"Now, we have to get out of here." Alphonse stated, as he scooped up Lan Fan in his arms.

"Why?" Lan Fan asked. "My wounds might re-open."

"Because... that." Alphonse pointed at the massive wall he had constructed to defend against the archer. Just as Lan Fan was about to ask what was wrong with it, when a massive explosion shattered the wall, and several arrows flew at them by the crack in the wall, which Alphonse sidestepped, while still carrying Lan Fan. Before any more arrows could fly, Alphonse grabbed a smoke grenade off Lan Fan's belt with the hand that wasn't cradling Lan, brushed it the symbols on the back of both hands against each other, and after performing some alchemy that Lan Fan couldn't see, sent the grenade flying at the archer with the speed of a bullet.

The grenade hit the archer dead on, and caused an explosion of smoke, blinding the archer so the next shots flew wide, giving time for Alphonse to break into a dead sprint, and make his getaway with Lan Fan.

When the smoke cleared a minute later, the archer narrowed her eyes and pushed in her glasses, and barely made out Alphonse disappearing behind some ruins on the horizon, much too far for her to make an accurate shot. She looked at the fallen assailants with disdain. The dossier she had received prior to this job had explained that Alphonse Elric and Lan Fan were both Class SS combatants, a rating only outmatched by the now deceased "Father" entity and her boss. Still, she was amazed at how efficiently the Xing girl had dispatched her assailants.

In fact, if she hadn't shot those arrows, Lan Fan probably could have bested all of the attackers without Alphonse' help. The archer put down her bow and sighed. Good help was almost impossible to find these days. Then she smirked. Today hadn't been a total loss though. She could now confirm that Alphonse was in fact, in Resembool. "I'm coming for you..." She whispered, before she started laughing. That would be a fight she would greatly enjoy.

Too far to hear the archer's deranged laughter, Alphonse tended to Lan Fan's wounds within his underground hideout, located under Pinako's Automail Workshop. The entrance was expertly hidden, and was deep enough underground that no sound short of a small explosion would be heard from the surface.

The elixir that Alphonse applied earlier stopped the bleeding and closed up most major wounds, and already she felt all the pain disappear. It seemed that Alphonse had mastered both Alchemy and Alkahestry, and was fusing them in ways that Lan Fan had never seen before.

Looking around Lan Fan saw that his hideout was divided into three parts, the laboratory which contained row upon row of transmutation circles and chemicals. Test tubes filled with solutions hung on racks, and piles of notes were stacked neatly on a workbench. This was the room that Lan Fan was in, resting on a chair. Connected to it was a room that could be described as a cross between an armory and a memorabilia room. Lan Fan recognized one pair of gauntlets that belonged to the heavily muscled Alchemist who had assisted them years ago. There were also knives, swords, rifles and pistols, all hanging neatly from a hook or stored neatly in racks. The third room appeared to be a cross between a kitchen and a pantry, with a stove and an oven that were currently off, and many cupboards and drawers beside them that most likely contained food. It was all in all, quite a comfortable place to live.

But Lan Fan could never imagine living in such a place, living like Alphonse, without fighting and acting. The Alphonse that Lan Fan had fought and adventured with hadn't been like this.

"Why do you hide?" Lan Fan asked as she sat up, all pain gone and all her wounds seemingly healed. "Your mastery of Alkahestry and Alchemy, coupled with your combat prowess would make you a deadly warrior. Why do you insist on hiding?"

"Who would I be fighting for?" Alphonse asked, as he gently pushed her back to a resting position, before applying a salve to the wound areas, which still bore small evidence of damage to the skin, and amazingly, scabbing had already started. Whatever elixir Alphonse had used on her was amazingly effective, rivaling the best healers from her homeland.

"What do you mean?" Lan Fan asked "You would join with Briggs, fight against the Amestrian government. Or create your own band of vigilante freedom fighters, or even become a mercenary. A person of your talents is wasting his time spending his days in this lab." She gestured with her hand to include his underground hideout.

"The alchemists and soldiers at Briggs, what are they fighting for? They would see me as a weapon, a tool, someone who could bring the new Amestrian government and their pet alchemists to heel." He paused, and his eyes lit up "But here, I'm free to conduct experiments, merge Alchemy and Alkahestry in ways that have nothing to do with fighting. Come, let me show you something!" Lan Fan's eyes followed him as he walked towards one of the transmutation circles in his laboratory, and put three blocks of wood in the centre.

He crossed his hands, and then tell-tale electrical crackle of alchemy filled the air, and the blocks of wood changed shape and assembled themselves into something that vaguely looked like a glider. Then, Alphonse took out Alkahestry markers and carved a purification circle within the transmutation circle, and once he crossed his hand over the small wooden glider again, it started to float gently above the ground, and began to glide slowly around the hideout, without showing signs of losing its lift.

Lan Fan's eyes widened "How does it keep afloat?"

Alphonse smiled. "I imbued the wings of the glider to respond to flow of energy in the earth's crust, the "Dragon's Pulse" as you call it in Xing. It draws a miniscule amount of energy from them, and uses it in place of air currents." Then his smile turned sour. "If I was with Briggs, they would want me to develop it into a bomber, or an assault vehicle. Here, I can just create for the sake of creating."

Lan nodded grudgingly, admitting that Briggs would most likely ask Alphonse about the military applications of all his findings, or perhaps just employ him as a front-line solider to deploy his devastating set of skills. Alphonse had already been a formidable warrior twelve years ago, and the effortless way that he dispatched an assassin and provided cover without alerting the assailants to his presence until he struck spoke volumes about his combat prowess. Lan Fan was willing to bet that Alphonse had taken part in the battle that was evidenced in the Workshop ruins, and that he had come out the victor.

Alphonse retuned to Lan Fan, and offered her a cup of something.

"What is it?" She asked

"Medicine, to flush out any toxins the attackers might have gotten into your body, and to bolster your immune system. You should be fully recovered in an hour. The place is a bit messy though, I' usually don't get friendly visitors. Usually the only visitors I get are trying to kill me. I understand the new Fuhrer posted a ransom on my head." Alphonse sat down and smiled. "So how much am I worth?"

Lan Fan listed the number. Alphonse whistled. "That's nearly as much my brother paid Yoki for the deed of that mining town, only this time, the money's real." Alphonse smiled, while Lan Fan shot him a puzzled look.

"Oh, that's right" Alphonse said "You hadn't joined us in our adventure yet. It was one of my brother's most brilliant moves. He always found a way to make things right... "Alphonse then sighed, as if talking about his brother brought a burden on him, and fell into silence.

Lan Fan, hoping to divert the topic, pointed into the armoury room. "Hey Alphonse, I see your helmet's there but what happened to the rest of your armour?"

That brought a smile to Alphonse. "I had it melted down by various automail mechanics, and refitted into other automail parts, so that it could help other people."

"And you kept the helmet as a reminder?"

At that Alphonse face darkened slightly. "We originally used it as a nest for birds, it wad Den's idea. But when I went off with May to go learn Alkahestry in Xing, I took it with me, and when I came back, I just never really thought of leaving it behind. So when Edward and I had to go to Central City to deal with the growing discontent between the general public and the Alchemists, I just took the helmet with me." Alphonse paused, and his eyes glowered. "Then that damn bastard decided to start a revolution against Mustang's government and we were forced to stay in Central City to help the government stop them, I didn't have time to visit Resembool to put my helmet back."

Lan Fan gulped, realizing she had gone from one sensitive topic to another. So again, she made another pitch to change the direction of the conversation. "So out there, during the fight..."

Alphonse nodded. "I heard explosions, gunshots and Alchemy, so I decided to see what was going on. You're quite the talented fighter Lan Fan"

Lan Fan nodded to accept the compliment. "Thank you. However, I noticed you didn't use clapping Alchemy, and now use those transmutation symbols marked on your hands. Why don't you use clapping Alchemy anymore?"

Then Alphonse's face shifted into one of complete hostility, and Lan Fan knew that she really should just stop asking questions and respect the silence. She made a mental note to do that next time. "I'd rather not tell you why I'm not using Clapping Transmutation anymore." Alphonse said coolly as he got up abruptly. "Let's just say that I don't want to be reminded of what it represents. You should rest for a while, I'll come and check up on you in fifteen minutes, and then you can tell me to what do I owe the pleasure of your business, and why those assailants were trying to kill you."

Lan Fan nodded, and closed her eyes. Emperor Lin had silver tongue, Lan Fan had seen it in action plenty of times. But she supposed that despite the countless hours spent by his side, none of his smooth talking abilities had rubbed off on her.


End file.
